Er, I just realized that, in my ranting, my comments on "lightning speed" make no sense. Apples and oranges...

If taxpayer money is going to fund broadband, then the taxpayers should *own* the broadband infrastructure it created and lease that back to the broadband providers. I'd be willing to pay a tax on broadband if it chipped at the anti-consumer/anti-innovation broadband monopolies that exist now and put ownership in the hands of those who use it. As it is, I already pay a high price for sub-par broadband access from a company that has openly abused its monopoly because I don't have any other options. It kills me that U.S. providers brag about "lightning fast" speeds (which is about 93,000 miles per second) that are actually "up to" XX mbps (they don't guarantee high speeds, just bill for them), while providers in Japan and South Korea offer substantially faster speeds at substantially lower prices.

I was down there on Day 2 photographing demonstrators and police. This was Sunday, so the NYPD was able to block off Wall Street, the bull, areas near banks, etc. so disruptions by the demonstrators were minimal. An Anon told me they had been forced away from Battery Park and into Zuccotti Park the night before, but there didn't seem to be much tension between demonstrators and police at the time and some of the police seemed friendly with demonstrators. Demonstrators have made it clear time and time again that they are also fighting on behalf of NYPD officers. From reports I've read through Twitter and elsewhere, some NYPD officers have shown at least some support for demonstrators but the "white shirt" commanding officers are the ones who usually instigate trouble. I can't verify this directly, but in many of the photos and videos I've seen of arrests and attacks on demonstrators, "white shirts" appear to have been directly involved. The now-infamous pepper spraying of penned in female demonstrators was done by a white shirt officer who also appears to have sprayed some of his officers as well. I'm planning to head back to Zuccotti Park this week to get more photos, so I'll have a better idea of how much things have changed in the past week or so.

Right--because when I say 'Gay names', I'm talking in super-secret code that really means 'I hate men who like other men'.

I was raised back when, 'gay' meant you thought something was lame (because my parents were raised to think 'gay' meant 'happy'), and 'fag' was a cigarette.

So let me re-write my post for retards like you:
Using gay lame names like mebi instead of mega.

Happy now? Or should I say gay now?

Resorting to bribery would signal that Google competitors have given up on competing by creating a better product and instead have to resort to simply paying users to make the switch. It's like being asked to drop your supermodel girlfriend for a bag lady in exchange for a suitcase full of cash.

In the past, I would have agreed but now I'm not so sure. Microsoft may still hold the largest chunk of the OS pie, but I think it has lost considerable credibility with consumers. Failing to play by the rules has worked for Microsoft in the past, but I don't think that is going to work much longer. I think consumers are growing tired of spending money on inferior software and this discontentment will probably extend to Internet Explorer if it can't play by the rules. HTML 5 is supposed to eliminate competing standards so that everything can work off the same set of rules. For a developer, this is a godsend. No more developing standards compliant code and then having to write bad code in order to appease Internet Explorer. I expect we'll see a developer backlash against browsers that aren't compatible with the standards and this will translate to either Microsoft playing by the rules or watching its browser market share plummet.

That's fair. I would hope that all news organizations are viewed with some level of skepticism because there is always the risk of bias -- whether from non-profit donors, advertisers, or editors with an agenda. I apologize my comment came off as an attack against you. Wasn't my intention. The bias comment wasn't directed at you at all and I wasn't trying to generalize. I was just pointing out that the organization I worked for had been criticized for bias based on nothing more than the political leanings of the donors and that the accusations were baseless -- in my experience with that particular organization. My point was that it is possible for a non-profit journalism organization to be unbiased, regardless of its source of funding.

It's a legitimate concern, but one that can't be used with a broad stroke like you just did. Take ProPublica, for instance. It's funded by left-leaning Herbert and Marion Sandler yet headed by former Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger -- and it's staffed with award-winning journalists from major news organizations across the country who have already proven their objectivity and professionalism. The suggestion that the journalists that make up ProPublica could somehow be swayed by the donors is silly. There's nothing really the donors could hold over any of their heads; they could just as easily return to the for-profit news organizations most of them came from and I can't imagine any of them would compromise their journalistic integrity for a job they don't need. I was one of the first batch of reporter interns for Publica, so I speak from my own experience. No one outside of the newsroom was allowed to know what we were investigating (something that drove my friends and roommates nuts with curiosity), and my understanding is that the donors didn't even know what investigations were underway until they read them in the newspaper or saw them on TV with everyone else. But, people who are convinced an organization is biased will also find "evidence" of that bias when the facts don't match their preconceived notions of truth.

Hahaha! That is one of the funniest things I've ever read on Slashdot!

Thank you! Fourth-dimension as another dimension of space is college freshman-level mathematics.

Even if that's the case, Netflix is punishing the people who are willingly paying for legal content. This is the kind of abuse that makes it understandable for people to throw their hands up in exasperation and say "hey, I tried to hand my money over for legal content but they took advantage of me. Piracy is so much easier to deal with."

...and WSJ's position is backed by evidence. Typical Japanese Internet users were blazing at 50Mbps at about $30 a month in 2007 while U.S. users were paying about $50 for 6Mbps. Why? Government infusion of cash and competition. See http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/04/04/HNjapbroadband_1.html